is one; and every argument that proves him to be one, disproves him to be three. The whole controversy turns upon the use of words. It turns upon the distinction between a Person and a Being. The common idea conveyed by the word Person, is a separate intelligent Being. When you say there are three Persons in God, you mean three Beings, or you must define the word Person. If by Person you mean Being, you assert there are three Gods, which is impossible; if person is used in any other sense you must explain that sense. If you cannot do this, then it evidently has no meaning in your mind. You use words without ideas. You make a proposition which has no signification. In other words, you make an affirmation which affirms nothing. The matter then, is reduced to this, the proposition that there are three Persons in God, in the only sense in which it is intelligible is false, and if it is true in any sense, in that sense it is not intelligible, and if unintelligible cannot be perceived to be true. It is impossible then that it should be asserted from conviction, and as impossible that it should be assented to from a perception of its truth. Every argument that is brought to prove the three to be three Persons, will equally prove them to be three Beings, and of course will be valid just so far against the Unity of God. And any argument to show that these three Persons are one Being, is equally conclusive to show that personality has been improperly applied. If all the separate actions ascribed to the three Persons, are

the actions of one Being acting in the three Persons, then the three Persons are nothing more than three names for three classifications of the actions of God. Personality repeated three times of one Being destroys the very idea and essence of personality, destroys all its intelligible meaning, and as far as that subject is concerned makes it a word without signification.

A man demands my assent to the proposition, there are three Persons in one God; I ask him what he means by person? I ask him if he means a separate independent intelligent Being? He answers, he does not. He does not use the word in the common sense, but in a sense peculiar to this case. I ask him what that sense is? He cannot tell. You demand of me then, I answer, to assent to a proposition which conveys to my mind no intelligible idea, and, it appears to be equally unintelligible to you. We both, in reality, in assenting to it, assent to nothing but words, and if they convey to us no intelligible meaning, to us they are nothing, and we assent to nothing. Were these words in the Bible, then I might say that I believed they expressed truth, though I could not understand it. But not being in the Bible, or any words of the same import, I consider them the mere invention of fallible men. I cannot believe on their authority. So far from supposing them to be true, as I cannot understand them myself, and no one can explain them to me, I think it fair to

conclude that those who framed them had no clear ideas.

Plurality in God then, is impossible, it is a self contradiction. The attributes of God exclude plurality. Plurality of men, or of finite spirits is possible. They may be multiplied without end, for they do not exclude each other. But one infinite Person, must necessarily exclude every other infinite Person. There cannot be two infinites of the same kind, whether of Beings or Persons, or things, for they must either exclude each other or become identical. There can for instance be but one infinite space. For the same reason, there can be but one God in any sense. Neither can there be three Persons, each of them Supreme, for in affirming supremacy of one, you deny it of the others. So the doctrine of the Trinity, when analyzed, resolves itself into a contradiction, or rather a tissue of contradictions. One part denies, what the other part affirms. In order to support the personality of each of the three Persons it must ascribe to them attributes which constitute them three Beings. To maintain the Unity of God, they must be proved to be one Being, and to make them one Being, those very attributes must be denied, which were necessary to constitute them three Persons. It may be said it is a mystery. We answer that it is a contradiction. A mystery may express truth, but a contradiction cannot, for it affirms and denies the same proposition.

It follows inevitably from the self-evident princi

ples we have just developed, that any division of God into three Persons, I mean which is real, and not nominal only, necessarily involves the consequence that each of these Persons must be imperfect. Deity from its own nature is one whole. Any imaginable division of it destroys its very nature. Any division of Deity cannot be Deity, whether you call that division person, or by any other name. In order to identify the three Persons of the Trinity, some separate or exclusive actions must be attributed to each, and of course denied of the others. Is it not evident that if the appropriate acts of Deity are divided among three Persons, neither of them in his actions can be perfect God? One must be shorn of his glories, to adorn the others. If one created the world alone, then the other two did not create it. If one govern the world, then the others do not, and He is the only proper object of prayer. If on the other hand, they all do the same acts, and there is no diversity of action, then there is nothing in those acts themselves to prove that there is more than one Being or Person in all that has ever been done by the Deity.

Besides, when we have recognized the existence of one Infinite Person, such as the Father, or the first Person of the Trinity is universally allowed to be, is he not competent to all the purposes of Deity? Is any thing gained by associating with himself two, or two hundred persons? They can do only, what he was infinitely competent to do alone.

But it is said a Trinity is necessary to the economy of redemption. The atonement to be infinite. must be made to God by an infinite Being. The Being to whom it is made is infinite, and the Being who makes it must be infinite. But the three Persons of the Trinity are infinite, not because they comprehend and are identical with three infinite Beings, but because each comprehends and is identical with one and the same infinite Being. Then if one Person of the Trinity make an infinite atonement to another, it must be by virtue of comprehending and being identical with the same infinite Being who constitutes the infinity of the Person to whom the atonement is made. So after all, it will be the same Divine and infinite Being, who makes an atonement, acting through one Person to himself, and receives it acting through another Person. Of such a scheme of atonement as this, I leave every one to judge.

No atonement can be made by a Being strictly and independently infinite, to a Being strictly and independently infinite, without involving the supposition of two independent infinite Beings, and of course two Gods. This theory of atonement then, demands what even the Trinity cannot give it, two independent infinite Beings, two Gods. The three Persons of the Trinity are not enough for it, for they are each of them infinite only by including and being identical with one and the same infinite Being. The same infinite Being must act in or through one of the Persons in making, at the same